Environment

Street art, more often than not, has a message greater than existing for art's sake. A political or social critique accompanies the graffiti, performance, intervention, and even the occasional yarn bomb. This is artivism - art as activism. Laura Scheriau muses on the phenomenon.

For more than twenty years, David Fogel has been chasing and documenting one of nature's most beautiful—and dangerous—phenomena: the tornado. Lately the field has become crowded, luring adrenaline junkies and increasing the danger for witnesses on the hunt. Isn't this supposed to be about science? About awe? Veterans like Fogel wrestle with whether to continue the chase.

Most people have heard some iteration of the expression “busy as a bee.” As a beekeeper, I can attest to honeybees’ industriousness. As long as weather permits, they will fly out of their hive and seek forage. Throughout a worker’s lifecycle—about four weeks—she (yes, workers are female)1 has several jobs, from cleaning to nursing to guarding to foraging.

TACOMA - Last week I toured the new Bullitt Center that opened this year in Seattle, billed as the greenest commercial building in the world, one of twenty buildings in the world right now that seeks Living Building certification set down by the International Living Building Institute (

BEIJING - As I sat in my apartment, my lungs had this horrible feeling, and for maybe the first time living in Beijing I had a feeling of not wanting to go outside, not wanting to expose myself to any more of the air pollution. As I sat on the couch contemplating going to refill my water jugs, a 100 yard walk away I saw that the air pollution was reading over 700 for the US Embassy and was even off the charts for the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection.

In this video, an example of Working Group reports, which are delivered at the General Assemblymeetings of the Occupy Wall Streetdemonstration in New York City, is delivered. Each working group of OWS reports on their corresponding committee meetings and actions. This video was taken on October 13, 2011.

On October 8, I interviewed Chris, an Occupy Wall Street supporter. In this video, Chris breaks down some of the most serious issues the so-called 99% face in an advanced capitalist economy, and some of the possible (painful) solutions to these problems. The subject matter is big, but the Movement's imagination is bigger.

BEIJING - Last Saturday I spent a moment staring at a picture of a naked man pulling a cart of coal in an underground mine. Throughout the 3 Shadows Gallery, designed by the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, you could see the juxtaposition of coal + ice (煤＋冰), a show produced by Asia Society’s Orville Schell.

On this Sunday afternoon on a crowded street of Mong Kok, one of Hong Kong’s most bustling districts, following a whistle, dozens of people jumped on a blue sheet, lying face down with card-board fins strapped to their backs, protesting in silence the practice of shark finning and expressing their will for Hong Kong to ban the sale of shark fins.